Two Colonial Coins from British West Africa and a Fantasy Crown Bearing the Portrait of Edward the Eighth Coin Porfolio Album

On 20 January, 1936, Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David, of the House of Windsor, succeeded his father, George V, as King of Great Britain and the Dominions of the British Empire. Edward VIII would abdicate in December of the same year, in order to marry the love of his life, the twice-divorced American arriviste Wallis Simpson. His 326-day reign is among the shortest in the long annals of British history.  When he was Prince of Wales, Edward became arguably the world’s first modern international celebrity. Exploits of the royal family have always been the subject of great popular interest, but Edward took to the role like none of his predecessors ever had. He was handsome, suave, fashionable, and unlike his stolid and old-fashioned father, he seemed to emulate the ebullient spirit of the post-war Jazz Age. In short, he had it all. That he would surrender so precious a prize as the British throne to marry a commoner—an American commoner, at that, and one with a somewha